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Friday, June 20, 2014

Flannel Friday - Rock-A-Bye Animals

So as I was making flannel board sets to some of Matt Novak's other books (My Froggy Valentine and Too Many Bunnies), I decided to search for any others, since I enjoy his story telling. I found this one called Rock-a-bye Christmas:

His stories lend themselves to story time because they are repetitive and anticipatory. The trouble is, the books themselves are small and better for one-on-one reading. Flanneling them makes them accessible to a larger crowd. All of his books are themed around a holiday, but the holiday references are easily removed (or used) in felt too.

The story goes (and is paraphrased for this blog post):

Farmer Ben was finishing up his Christmas preparations and decided it was time for bed. Suddenly it was too noisy to sleep! The chicken was up squawking! "She must be cold," he wondered.

So he brought her inside and soothed her with a lullaby. The chicken fell asleep. But then the pig started yelling!! Oh no! He must be cold too!

So Farmer Ben brought the pig into the house and soothed him with a lullaby. The pig fell asleep. Just as Farmer Ben thought there was to be peace, the sheep started hollering! Oh dear.

So again Farmer Ben brought the sheep into the house and soothed her with a lovely lullaby. By the time the sheep fell asleep and Farmer Ben thought he was done, the cow started to bellow. What a night!

So Farmer Ben pushed and pulled the cow into the house and sang his little lullaby. The animals were finally asleep! But Farmer Ben could not sleep. The chicken snored. The pig's nose whistled. The sheep's throat gurgled. The cow's stomach growled. What's a farmer to do??

Ah perfect! The barn wasn't so bad. I wonder why they were complaining? Farmer Brown fell fast asleep in the soft hay and didn't hear another sound all night long.

Now in the book, the animals all wake up and party in the house, but I thought that would be hard to transition to in felt so I will leave the story like I did. As you can see, it doesn't need to be a Christmas Story but you can use it that way if you would like. That makes it more versatile!!!

I also decided it wasn't necessary to have all of the pieces reverse like they do in the book, with the other side having them asleep. I only did that with the farmer. I can always go back and make the animals asleep if I decide to later.

Big thanks to Hannah at Lovin' the Library for hosting Flannel Friday this month! Click over to her new blog and catch up. I had a great time lunching with Hannah at the PLA this year. She has some great ideas.

If you would like to read more on how you can get involved with Flannel Friday, CLICK HERE!
Thanks for visiting!

I copied them right out of the book. I had to get the book through inter-library loan but once I did, you can either free-hand draw them larger, or take pictures and blow them up larger in word or some other program.